Learning from politics online

The government is advertising for a new civil service position - Director of Digital Engagement. Some have criticised this as 'Director of Digital Propaganda' or simply a waste of money. One of the objectives of this is to get more ministers blogging and using Facebook or Twitter.

Mouse does think its a little contrived to force a digital engagement strategy in this way, and the level of pay for this civil servant (around £120,000 per year) is extraordinary.

But it did make me a little envious of the concerted effort being made to engage online. The church is in desperate need of more online engagement. Mouse has pointed out before that the level of online activity from the senior end of the church is pretty woeful. Rowan Williams rather sadly has a You Tube channel with around 300 subscribers. This might have sounded like a good idea to the ABC, but anyone who actually uses the internet would have pointed out that this is not the way people actually use You Tube. Most people post videos there so that they can then embed them in a blog, website or Facebook page. This is reflected by the dismally low subscriber numbers - fewer viewers than this blog attracts every day.

The Government has realised that connecting directly with individuals is a hugely powerful way of getting a message across, as well as listening directly to what people have to say. This has lead to the development of the powerful political grass roots websites like Conservative Home.

So, Mouse thinks that a Director of Digital Engagement might not be a bad idea for the Church. There are a small number of success stories to learn from. Bishops Alan Wilson, Nick Baines and Tim Ellis are great bloggers. Bishop Alan is also a regular Twitter (734 followers), as is Bishop Pete Broadbent (76 followers)(who made a few small waves when he signed up for Twitter on his Blackberry from the floor of the General Synod last month).

Mouse will offer to help the church on this again, but I'm not holding my breath. Will anyone else help out?

Darwin - missunderstood Christian or Nazi?

Christians have responded to the bi-centenary of Darwin's birth in different and confusing ways. The mainstream Christian view in the UK is to accept his theory of evolution, and take the view that it was God who set the laws of nature in motion. This means that God is still the creator, working through evolution and natural selection. So it is not surprising that the Church has taken part in the celebrations of Darwin's birth.

But some have tried to go further. The good old CofE has a page on its website setting out how active Darwin was in his local parish church. A nice angle, and a crafty way of trying to wrench Darwin away from his unwanted position as atheist pin-up for Dawkins and the like. But as the site itself acknowledges, Darwin struggled with his own faith.

Some have argued that Darwin recanted his theories on his death bed and professed a new faith. However, the evidence for this is pretty shaky, and even if he did convert on his death bed, this does nothing to dent his theories or the weight of scientific evidence that followed from others who built on Darwin's work, so Mouse thinks this argument is a non-starter.

Some wings of the church have never accepted his theories, however. Tony Campolo, the well known American pastor, writer and speaker and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University, wrote a piece yesterday in Christian Today entitled, "What's wrong with Darwinism". In this he writes, "In case you think that Darwin sounds like a Nazi, you are not far from the truth." He claims that Darwin advocated ethnic cleansing on a global scale to remove the world of inferior races.

Campolo uses the claim that Darwin was a racist to argue that his theory of evolution should not be taught in schools and that 'intelligent design' should be taught. Intelligent design is often misunderstood, but it basically argues that the genetic variations that Darwin observed in evolution were not random, but were designed by God.

Now regardless of the rights or wrongs of this, it seems to Mouse that the rejection of the theory of evolution is, for non-Christians, the mark of a nutter. Refusing to believe a mainstream theory, accepted by the scientific community demonstrates the reason why Christians' views on other things should not be trusted. Arguing that Darwin was a Nazi or that he recanted on his death bed will simply be seen as a low blow which does not address the central point over the truth (or otherwise) of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Christians should be very careful in rallying against Darwin, who is regarded as a hero by the scientific community and remembered fondly by society at large.

The good old CofE is right, however, to try to take the sting out atheist claims that Darwin has killed off Christianity and defeated the claims of the Bible. Pointing out that Darwin struggled with his faith but did not reject it outright is an important fact in this muddy debate. But the church must be careful not to be seen as trying to adopt Darwin as someone who was a Christian after all, and was just misunderstood.

Brown & Catholocism

Earlier in the week I asked what Brown was up to inviting the Pope to the UK. I didn't quite see what was in it for the PM, and the cynic in me thinks that politicians only do big gestures when there is political capital to be had. I wondered whether it was simply a smoke screen, to create some other news beyond Britain's economic meltdown, or whether there was something deeper in it. Well, I think I now know.

Last September Brown announced that he was planning on changing the Act of Settlement to allow for a Catholic monarch in Britain. This attracted some attention that it might be a cynical ploy to buy the Catholic vote. This was based on the fact that Labour's vote in Scotland was collapsing in the face of SNP opposition, and there is a large Catholic population there. Incidentally, you probably won't hear anything more on this, because they added at the time that this would only happen if Labour won the next election. When policies start off in the long grass, there is precious little chance of it ever happening.

Last week we had Brown's maximum publicity visit to the Vatican and and his invitation to the Pontiff to visit the UK. He even published an article in the Pope's daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano taking the front page.

There was then the fantastic coup for the Catholic weekly, The Tablet, who managed to get an exclusive interview with the PM. Now we hear that Brown is considering making Cormac Murphy-O'Connor a life peer, the first Catholic Bishop to hold that position since the 16th century.

The love-in with the Cardinal was not entirely a one-sided affair, as O'Connor usefully came to Brown's defence in the face of a co-ordinated attack by Anglican Bishops when they accused Brown of presiding over a decade of destructive materialism, and attacking the debt culture. O'Connor helped out by publicly disagreeing with that analysis and saying that we shouldn't play the 'blame game' and should look to ourselves first.

So, what to conclude from this remarkable set of headline grabbing stories connecting Brown with the Catholic church. I'm afraid Mouse's most cynical whiskers are bristling. I fear Brown really is engaging on a crude and shameless attempt to buy the Catholic vote. Shame on you.

Update on the suspended / reinstated Christian nurse

Apologies to loyal readers who rely on the Mouse for religious news. It snuck by me that Caroline Petrie, the Christian nurse who was suspended for praying with a patient, had been reinstated. This morning Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities (don't get me started) called it 'common sense'.

You're not joking. It was a complete disgrace that she was suspended in the first place. Will the NHS managers who attempted to bring disciplinary action now be disciplined themselves? I doubt it.

Church of Canada in Jesus racism row

This one is just bubbling up, and hasn't had bit press yet, but I think it will.

The Anglican Church of Canada has published a series of Lenten meditations. The meditation for March 27 seems to imply that Jesus was a racist, or at least that he sinned, until he feels compassion for the Canaanite woman (Mt 14:22-27). This is pretty straightforward heresy for most Christians, and certainly the Anglican church. Mouse thinks that it certainly says clearly that Jesus had 'prejudice', which does imply sin.

This has been picked up by a couple of blogs, but I imagine the story will grow as it gets more publicity. I've copied the reflection in full below so you can judge for yourself.

“… a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’ ” - Matthew 14:22-27

This not a story for people who need to think that Jesus always had it together, because it looks like we’ve caught him being mean to a lady because of her ethnicity. At first, he ignores her cries. Then he refuses to help her and compares her people to dogs.

But she challenges his prejudice. And he listens to her challenge and grows in response to it. He ends up healing her daughter. What we may have here is an important moment of self-discovery in Jesus’ life, an enlargement of what it will mean to be who he was. Maybe we are seeing Jesus understand his universality for the first time.

Friday round up

Here's my round from the blogosphere. Ten of the best from the blogs this week.


1. Archbishop Cranmer on Jade Goody finding God

2. Martin Beckford in the Telegraph on why the Pope may or may not visit the UK

3. Tim Chester on how to wash up to the glory of God

4. Coffee House blog on the conversion of environmentalists to the nuclear faith

5. George Pitcher on what would Jesus tweet

6. Bishop Tim Ellis on the U2charist

7. Ruth Gledhill on Bishop Williamson and David Irving

8. Bishop Alan on Facebook mushing our brains

9. The Faith Central guide to Lent

10. Mars Hill blog interview with a Church Mouse (shameless self publicity - repent)

Bishop Williamson update

So he's back in Britain. We seem to be attracting loonies at quite a rate at the moment (cf Wilders and Phelps). Williamson was given 10 days to get out of Argentina and since he is British, we can't keep him out. What is quite astonishing are the revelations that he's been in regular contact with David Irving, possibly the most famous holocaust denier. On his arrival at Heathrow he was met by Michele Renouf, another holocaust denier. Surely the Pope must take action on Williamson and kick him out of the Catholic church.

Interview with a Mouse

The Church Mouse was interviewed by the Mars Hill blog in their, "20 questions to a fellow blogger" slot. You can read such fascinating information as my favourite Bond and my favourite Dr Who. There is also some interesting stuff on Christians who have inspired me and my blogging raison d'etre.

Daily dose of guilt this Lent?

Tearfund's carbon fast sounded like a great idea. Give up burning the planet this Lent. Instead of giving up something that does no-body any harm at all, why not give up something that is destroying the planet. For some this will work a treat. The effect on the Mouse, however, may simply be to provide me with a daily dose of guilt.

The first installment is the instruction to remove a light bulb from my house to serve as a reminder of my carbon fast. Having gone to the expense of replacing all my sinful high energy bulbs and replacing them with the low energy variety, this does seem like a chore I don't need. Today's instruction is to good food in a microwave - which I don't own. So now I feel guilty about using my 'conventional' oven.

Christians always tread a fine line between speaking the truth into people's lives, and trying not to be too threatening or 'preachy'. Many would say that climate change is not an issue to back away from. I would agree with that, however, that's not quite what Lent is for. Mouse hopes to emerge from Lent spiritually renewed, not brow-beaten. Perhaps that means I'm dodging the issue, and backing away from my responsibilities. But I don't think so. I recycle, I take public transport to work, I do what I can. I am a Tearfund fan, and I take part in their campaigns, sending of postcards to the PM periodically. I don't feel I'm a slouch when it comes to climate change. Perhaps that's why I'm struggling with the carbon fast on only day 2.

I will stick with the carbon fast, however, and see how I get on. Updates will follow.

Archbishops on Zimbabwe

Well. Mouse was pretty sceptical this morning about the level of interest the Archbishops would generate in their calls for prayer, fasting and aid for Zimbabwe. I'm delighted to now say, how wrong I was. That will teach me for blogging too quickly. I log on this evening to find the news everywhere. Well done chaps.

In mild defense at my post, most of the publicity has focused on the call for aid donations, rather than on the 'world day of prayer', which was the source of my scepticism.

Easter polling

Not exactly topical, but Mouse wanted to remind you of the ComRes poll for the think tank Theos that you may have seen last year at Easter. The question was simply to ask who do you think Jesus was. Son of God, Prophet, Teacher or didn't exist. Not surprisingly, the Great British public were far more believing than we would have thought, with 40% saying Son of God and only 13% saying that he didn't exist.

The politicians always look at the 'don't know' column as those votes are up for grabs. In this case, 31% didn't know whether Jesus was the Son of God or not. All this mirrors a similar poll done at Christmas.

Mouse is increasingly of the opinion that data is crucial for the Church. The dismal effort recently from the good old CofE on church attendance is not a good start in understanding who is coming to church. The paucity of polling on public opinion on religion is not a good start in understanding broader views.

Fairtrade fortnight

Did you know its Fair Trade fortnight? I certainly didn't. Fair trade is an issue that Christians have picked up on (just a tiny bit late from the Mouse's perspective) and many churches will be promoting fair trade fortnight. Many churches have become a 'fair trade church' and even whole diocese have been pushing the initiative out across an area.

Mouse thinks that where the good old CofE has failed, however, is in efforts to lobby the government to strengthen fair trade. Whilst organisations like Tearfund have been campaigning hard on global trade, the good old CofE has been less vocal. Dizzy has slam dunked the governments efforts (do not click on the link if you are offended by bad language!) in response to a piece by Douglas Alexander on LabourList affirming the importance of Fair Trade. It seems that these views are not backed up by any real policy initiatives, with the global trade inequalities and European Union subsidies being one of the driving forces behind unfair trade.

Cartoon by Dave Walker

Mouse is reminded of the first ever fair trade (sort of) campaign. In the mid-18th century, Christian campaigners boycotted sugar to highlight the issue of slavery. The growth in the sugar industry to sweeten the tea of western Europeans was a driver behind the brutal trade in human beings across the Atlantic to work in the sugar plantations on the Americas. The campaign was part of a winning movement. Whilst it drew criticism from some, it was a high profile campaign, which was part of the movement that eventually succeeded in changing public opinion and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

So, the question is what should the Church be doing now about Fair Trade. The reality is that companies like Primark don't seem to be damaged at all by allegations of sweat shops in their supply chain. Global trade negotiations happen with minimal action on removing barriers to fair global trade. In that context, churches changing over to Fair Trade tea and biscuits just doesn't cut it.

World day of prayer for Zimbabwe - update

I blogged a little earlier wondering whether anyone had heard of the world day of prayer for Zimbabwe. Well its today - did you hear about it?

Rowan Williams and John Sentamu have popped up on the Today programme to let everyone know about it ... sort of. Mouse missed the interview, but the report on the BBC spins it as a day of prayer and fasting for John Sentamu, and an aid call for everyone else. A quick look on the ABC's official website doesn't tell me anything about the day of prayer today. The Archbishop of York's site has a whole section on Zimbabwe which calls the nation to prayer and fasting. But I can't see anything about the world day of prayer today.

Mouse will be fasting during daylight hours.

Update: the official launch of the appeal is at the USPG site.

Brown and the Pope - what was all that about? Update

Ruth Gledhill reckons its looking like it might happen. Still don't understand what's in it for Brown.

Sex and the City (of Hereford)

News that Hereford NHS trust is offering £5 shopping vouchers to young people follows news from Bedfordshire that Nintendo Wiis are being offered as a prize to under 25s to take part in chlamydia screening and finally Houndslow are offering free chlamydia tests for 16-25 year olds with the results texted to the youth by return.

Its easy to laugh at Bedfordshire's 'Wii for a wee' initiative, or at Houndslow's 'bad nuz' texting, but Mouse can't help being very concerned that health authorities are so worried about STDs for the nation's youth. Not sure if its wise for the church to 'engage' directly with these issues, but it reinforces the importance of working on social issues like marriage breakdown and substance addiction, as these are so often involved somewhere in the chain of events that lead to under-age sex.

The Goody, the bad and the ugly

Mouse has been resisting every natural urge to blog about Jade Goody, but I finally now submit. I will not try to analyse what's going on in her troubled life right now. Others have commented on some of it, particularly Christian commentators intrigued by her seeming embrace of God.

All I will say is that there has been some pretty shoddy behaviour by the media. She has gone from villain to heroine in one fell swoop. The reality is that she is not a particularly likable person, but the venom poured out on her in years gone by has been unnecessary and unpleasant. Now the tragedy of terminal cancer at such a young age is desperately poignant and drags sympathy out of even the hardest tabloid heart. The sudden conversion of the media and the love shown to her now seems hypocritical. The fact is that she used the media, and the media used her. That relationship continues right to the end, as she seeks to make enough money through her final days to support her family for the rest of theirs. The media seems happy to play their part. Mouse thinks this is awful.

Mouse will not comment on Goody again, but will simply say that as with all things, the Christian response is simply to pray and to trust God.

Brown and the Pope - what was that about?

What on earth was all this about the Prime Minister inviting the Pope to Britain? He visited the Pope (for any particular reason?), then invited the Pope to Britain (for any particular reason?). He then claimed that the Pope was considering it and likely to come next year (for any particular reason?), then the Vatican denied this and it becomes clear that it is highly unlikely to happen.

So what was all that about? I've tried hard to think through what the political benefit of these strange claims by Brown would be - after all, I'm cynical enough to think that he would only make such an invitation if he thought there was a political advantage to him doing so. Perhaps he thought it would be some other news to fill up the headlines at a time when it would almost certainly be about the recession and Labour's dire state in the polls (both now and next year when the Pope would have visited). Perhaps it was a crude attempt to appeal to Catholic voters. In the end, it seems just another example of a desperate attempt at news management that has left Gordon Brown with a black eye.

The spiritual detox diet - is lent in fashion?

Lent is almost upon us and the Church, along with a number of other Christian organisations, has launched their lent campaign. Could it be that lent is the Christian festival most in tune with contemporary culture?

It was the great 21st century philosopher Robbie Williams who said, "Live for liposuction, detox for your rent. Overdose for Christmas and give it up for lent". And so it is with secular society today. Christmas has become about over-indulgence, and lent is about abstinence. Our consumption centric society has spilled out into a consumption centric economy, with disastrous effects. We assumed that our over-indulgence at the checkout could be paid for later, with an financial detox diet at some unspecified future point.

Despite the high profile of detox diets, there is very little hard scientific fact to back up their claims to put your body back in shape after periods of abuse. A study by the BBC showed that, just as you would expect, the damage is done when you over-indulge. They conclude, "in a binge and purge culture relying on a detox isn’t the solution. Your body has its own way of regulating toxins and a week of suffering won’t change that so you are better off sticking to a balanced diet all the time." Like the man with his head in the oven and his feet in the freezer to even it out, the detox diet simply can't remove the damage done by the binge.

So we approach lent this year. Inevitably there will be conversations around the country which start with, "what are you giving up for lent". Mouse finds it interesting that Lent is a time when secular society really engages with the religious basis for the holiday.

There are dangers in promoting lent as a time of spiritual detox - a quick fix simply cannot fix the spiritual hole. The reality is that we can't live spiritually bereft lives, then expect it to be resolved by 40 days of abstinence. But if we can find a way of taking the lenten principles to the masses, we might just have a concept that is genuinely Christian that secular society can engage with. Christmas has been adapted to be a time of shopping a parties. Easter is a time for chocolate eggs. We mustn't let lent be ruined by the detox culture too. There is an opportunity to claim lent back amongst the wider secular society - there is no obvious commercial gain to be had from abstinence, so the danger of corruption is less.

So how is the church and other christian groups approaching their lent campaigns. They seem to be a pretty random mix of ideas to me - all good, but not really focused on a central theme. I'm not suggesting they all get together for a co-ordinated campaign, but they could at least all sound like they know what lent is for. I also note that all these campaigns are primarily aimed at those already in the church. It does seem like another missed opportunity. Take a look for yourself.

On my part, Mouse will be following the Christian Aid, "Count your blessings" material.

Church of England

Christian Aid

The Methodist Church

Church Mission Society

Churches Together in Britain

Does Richard Dawkins think I'm stupid?

A piece in today's Guardian by Colin Blakemore invokes the spirit of Richard Dawkins and Charles Darwin to claim that "Science is just one gene away from defeating religion". The extraordinarily simplified argument is that science is beating religion because religoius people belive the Bible because they don't know any better.

Is that really what you think of us Christians? We are all so thick that we sit around gazing at nature and thinking that the only way it could have come into being was as if God acted like a cosmic magician and waved his magic wand to create it all. And how deflated we must feel every time science goes and explains something in a way that doesn't specify God as creator. Blakemore says, "Crick and Watson's discovery [decoding DNA] transformed our view of life itself - from a manifestation of spiritual magic to a chemical process. One more territorial gain in the metaphysical chess match between science and religion."

Sorry chaps, I'm just not that stupid. I believe in a God who is much smarter than the both of us, who designed all these laws in order that over billions of years we would evolve, and learn to love and worship him.

For the best dismantling of these rather tired arguments that I've seen, try Nicky Gumbel's "Is God a Delusion". Gumbel is a highly intelligent former barrister and now Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton who takes on Dawkins by looking at the evidence. It would be really nice if Dawkins' followers like Blakemore gave us Christians just a little more credit, and actually listened to our viewpoint.

Stanford and the blogs

The power of the blogosphere is demonstrated once again. Mouse was intrigued by a Newsnight piece on Friday night about how the blogosphere was way ahead of the conventional media on the Stanford fraud allegations. The jist of it was that it was all over the blogs for about three weeks before it got picked up by the mainstream media. For a good summary of the bloggers' coverage, read Nick Hoult's piece in the Telegraph.

On the face of it, this is a classic 'Blogosphere 1 - Old Media 0' story. But actually it started to worry Mouse a little. The argument was put forward on Newsnight that blogs can report on allegations quite freely without the inhibitions of potential court cases, whilst the mainstream media will wait for something more solid. But surely this isn't the case at all. The tabloids have never held back from a good story just because it may not be true. They just write that it has been alleged. They are past masters of reporting an allegation without actually making it themselves. And besides, there was plenty of solid fact to go on. There had been an open FBI investigation since July. This was surely a big enough story for any business correspondent to be following closely. Its important that blogs are a space for truly free and independent reporting, but it would be dangerous if it became a place where libel is accepted. As someone who spends a lot of time reading blogs, I have to say as a general rule this isn't the case. Even the most outspoken bloggers, like Cranmer or Guido Fawkes state opinion rather than make false claims of fact.

Mouse suspects the reality is just that the Old Media took its eye off the ball. It was happily making hay with a torrent of dire economic news, without having to go to the bother of actually investigate anything. In other words, it was an awful lot easier to report on the latest job statistics or reposession rate than to spend the time investigating a complex potential fraud.

However you look at it, the fact is that bloggers are becoming an important source of news and comment that the Old Media ignore at its peril.

Good old CofE becomes a Twit

Yes folks, believe it or not, the good old CofE is Twittering for Lent. This is part of a wider Lent initiative, designed to mobilise the online community in mutual support. If you're not a Twitterer, this may mean little to you. Basically, Twitter is a social networking space, where users connect with each other via short messages (known as Tweets). Its rather like open source text messaging. Its a huge and growing phenomenon, with many celebs boasting huge numbers of 'followers' (Britney Spears has over 176,000 followers / Stephen Fry has around 217,000 followers). Not surprisingly, politicians have also realised the power of Twitter. There are a number of politicians, such as Boris Johnson, John Prescott and Alistair Campbell, who post updates on their fascinating activities on the site. I'm currently aware of two CofE Bishops who Twitter - Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, and Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden. Bishop Alan has written a great blog about it.

Mouse thinks it is a powerful communication tool which the church should use. The question is, who in the church has come up with this idea? So far the church has been pretty backward with its use of technology. Rowan Williams' YouTube channel, for example, has a mere 300 followers. Could this be the first tentative step in the right direction? Here's hoping so.

Incidentally you can follow the Church Mouse on Twitter too (a humble 70 followers and rising).

What can we learn from Church attendance statistics

The good old CofE released its 'provisional' church attendance statistics for 2007 on Thursday. Here's the Mouse summary:

Infant baptisms - down
Child and adult baptisms - up
Infant and child thanksgivings - up
Confirmations - down
Marriages - no change
Funerals - down
Easter & Christmas attendance - down

The real question here is what can we learn from these stats. Here are a few observations:

1. These statistics tell us pretty much nothing about the religious beliefs of our nation, and far more about what day of the week Christmas fell on and what the weather was like.
2. The good old CofE is absolutely appalling at gathering information about its members with 'provisional' statistics for church attendance only generated some 14 months after the end of the year.
3. The church cannot present a statistic in a meaningful way - if you clicked the link above, you will have seen that the numbers are presented in a .pdf table, with no graph or accessible way of understanding the trends or significant changes.
4. The church has no sense of how these number may be read by anyone outside the church. There is no commentary attached to explain the stats, so it is natural that the eye catching numbers make the headlines. The Telegraph went for, "Christmas church attendance falls by 11% in a year". Well sort of - because it fell in the middle of the week, rather than a weekend the year before. There is absolutely no message management around it.
5. The statistics are almost certainly wrong. They are collated by individual churches by scribing the numbers into a ledger with a quill pen. OK I exaggerate for effect. But the system of data management really is a manual one, with each church counting up the numbers. This is not only subject to great inaccuracy (are they counting at the start of the service, then end or in the middle), but also to significant anomalies. We all know that church attendance at a church with a good church school attached is higher with parents of young children. No bad thing, but it doesn't tell us anything about the state of the nations faith.

Now, I don't want to be too down on the church for this, but it seems to me that if you're trying to grow the church (very glad to see the Bishops picking up this agenda coming out of the Primates meeting in Alexandria), you really should have a better understanding of your membership. Mouse would suggest firstly updating the arcane system of each church keeping a log book, and doing a survey over a few weeks in the autumn. There really are more sophisticated ways of managing data. Secondly, I suggest commissioning some real research on religious belief - this is, after all, far more important than the number of bums on seats.

Bible in schools

Bishop Nick Baines has (as usual) done some great blogging on the debate started by Andrew Motion on the Bible as a cultural backdrop for our society. Motion argues that students need a basic knowledge of the Bible in order that they can understand art and literature, as it is so often a critical reference point and context to those works. He's right of course, and Nick makes a number of good observations.

Mouse feels, however, that asking students to study the Bible in order that they can understand Milton is rather like asking students to study quantum physics in order that they could better understand relativity theory. Half of young people last year left school without the ability to read, write or add up to the standard expected of employers - i.e. without an A*-C grade in English and Maths. Understanding the Biblical underpinning of our culture and literature may be a bit of a stretch from here.

What an interesting aside, however, that libraries have been told to put the Bible on the top shelf. The story seems to be that some Muslims have requested the Qur'an be placed on the top shelf so that it is 'above commonplace things'. Moving the Bibles is a means of creating some equality. Either way, it seems to be putting it out of the reach of children, which can't be a good thing.

Friday round up

Ten of the best from the blogs this week:

1. Nick Baines on the theology of beer and garlic

2. Archbishop Cranmer 20 years on from the Satanic Verses

3. Ruth Gledhill on Nirvana day

4. The Church Times blog behind the scenes at the General Synod

5. Iain Dale can't resist another dig at Derek Draper (one of many)

6. Fantastic blog post on the joys of Twitter from Bishop Alan, the complete Twit

7. Theo Hobson on the Coffee House blog with some views on Rowan Williams from a reading of Rupert Shortt's biography

8. Damian Thompson on PC librarians and the Bible as a top shelf publication

9. Peter Ould on the Phelps not coming to the UK

10. Bishop Richard Chartres comes out of blogging semi-retirement to defend his comments on the recession (and the Mouse's response)

Anglican webwatch - York

Next up in an occasional feature on to highlight the best / shame the worst of the Anglican web is the Diocese of York. Mouse is a big fan of Bishop John, so here's hoping that its a good one. Same format as before, but one new feature. Since the whole point of this is to try to encourage the church to lift its game when it comes to its online presence and engagement with the grass roots and the wider non-churched public, I'll be letting the victims of my reviews know the outcome, and giving them a chance to read and respond. Lets see what happens.

1. Look and feel - Dated, I'm afraid. Small font, not enough graphics, too many links (sometimes there are links on three sides of the page, plus links in the text in the middle). 2 stars.
2. Ease of navigation - A little confusing due to the multiplicity of links, but once you get the hang of the system, its not too bad. Its actually quite a simple structure that's been made to look complicated by the links. The 'what's on' and 'news' sections are pretty annoying, because you're presented with a page on links at first, then have to click into each individual entry, but I guess you're either interested in an item or your not. 3 stars.
3. Purpose and outlook - Not clearly set out. What a shame that on the front page there is a link for seekers to go to the great re:jesus website, but on my browser it was out of shot at the bottom of the page. Its part advert for the Diocese, part newsletter, part equipping the church - overall it leaves you with a sense of not quite being sure what it is for. 2 stars.
4. Content - Pretty good in places, particularly the 'resources' section, which gives some decent resources for churches. Rest is a little thin, and the real problem is that there is nothing that really engages the reader - nothing interactive, and nothing that gives you the feeling that there is another person behind the site - its all pretty static brochure-ware. 2 stars.

Overall its not a bad effort. 9 stars is not a disaster, but with some thought into what the website was for and some design applied it could be much better.

Mouse

Gates gives £5m to develop home AIDS test kit

Mouse is working hard to find some good news stories. Hot on the heels of the GSK story is news that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has given £5m to Imperial College London to develop a home AIDS test for use in developing countries. Current tests are expensive and require infrastructure and training to use. Imperial's method costs £1.40 per test. Three companies have already developed a prototype and this funding will help develop a mass production version.

Well done Bill and Melinda.

Bishop of London replies on recession talk

Many (including The Church Mouse) picked up on the Bishop of London's comments at General Synod about the impact of the recession and job losses on individuals. The general tone was that his comments were crass and insensitive, implying that people would be better off after they lost their jobs. That's pretty much how the Mouse reported it, although I did add, "Come on Richard, I know that's not what you means, but you have to think these things through." Mouse's point was that he probably didn't mean what he said, but that it would come across badly. Plenty of others were less sympathetic.

Well Bishop Richard is now calling that a "non-story" caused by "callous and complacent" reporting. Mouse will leave it for you to decide. Read his speech in full for yourself. I stand by my reporting of it.

Mouse is more disappointed that he used up a valuable blog space for this denial. Bishop Richard has a blog, and is listed on the good old CofE's 'blogging bishops' page. Mouse had gently ridiculed this as it lists five bishops, of whom only three are regular bloggers. The Bishop of London has posted just five entries in the past 12 months. Since this entry might have to tide us over for another couple of months, it seems a terrible waste.

Vicar in court to defend brothel

OK, so this is a bit of an odd one. The Evening Standard was spinning it as, "Vicar defends brothel" which isn't quite true, but Rev David Gilmour of St Anne's, Soho, was called as a defense witness in a case where a group of prostitutes had the threat of having their brothel closed.

The case hinged on whether the brothel encouraged drug dealing and and drug taking in the area. Rev Gilmour said, "I live five doors away from the brothel. I have seen drug dealing going on opposite the rectory but I have never seen drug dealing going on outside [the brothel]. Soho has a problem with drug dealing given the nature of the area with clubs and everywhere else — it happens.” He said his church suffers from the same problems: “CCTV has picked up 20 people who entered the church alleyway and were using the premises to deal drugs.”

My guess is that St Anne's isn't the only church that suffers from these problems, and its too easy to sit back and pass judgement. It seems to the Church Mouse that Rev Gilmour has handled himself impeccably in this case, and although the Standard may try to portray him as a defender of prostitution, he has merely been completely honest and said what he sees.

O'Connor on the recession - we're paying the price

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has had a go at giving a Christian perspective on the recession. Its slightly better than the Bishop of London's effort, but still doesn't get the balance right.

He said, "[The recession] is not a punishment of God but the consequences of living a certain way of life. If you live a life that is consumed by overindulgence and greed, you eventually pay a price.” I'm sure that will make all those loyal Catholics who have lost their jobs at Woolworths, or wherever, feel much better. They can rest assured that they have lost their jobs as the price of a life consumed by overindulgence and greed. Now I'm sure that's not what he meant, but on a sensitive subject like this he really should think about how his comments could be taken.

On the plus side he does acknowledge that the church "should have said more" during the boom times. Quite. Exactly what the church should have said is not spelled out.

Oh well, here's waiting for something really intelligent and sensible to come out of the (any) church on the recession.

Zimbabwe day of prayer update

Navm has quite rightly pointed out that Rowan Williams mentioned this event in his Presidential Address to the General Synod. As such, I assume everyone is now familiar with the event?

Here's what he said:

You will have seen last week's statement from the Primates' Meeting about this, unanimously committing the whole Communion to continue and extend its practical support for the Church in Zimbabwe. In the light of this, the Archbishop of York and myself will be launching on Ash Wednesday an Archbishops' Appeal for Zimbabwe, in the context of a Day of Prayer for Zimbabwe. We hope that this will be part of a communion-wide project for Lent, and that every diocese represented here will play its part, responding to the urgent calls for help with medical supplies, food and clean water which come daily from Zimbabwe. Please publicise this Appeal in your dioceses and continue your prayers.

I doubt many people saw the statement from the Primates meeting. However, you can look forward to hearing more soon, assuming those who were at Synod were paying attention at this point and took the request seriously and remembered it at the end of the week and have the time, inclination and ability to publicise it across their diocese .... Mouse won't be holding his breath.

The messages are all precisely right, its just the communication that's so poor. Is the main method of communicating this important event really a communique from a Primates meeting, followed by a brief mention at General Synod? I know these are high profile events for Bishops and very keen Anglicans, but for the rest of the world these events are part of church bureaucracy that hardly got a mention in any non-Christian media.

Anyone heard of the world day of prayer for Zimbabwe?

Scouring the Anglican news site I found that Ash Wednesday has been declared an official world day of prayer for Zimbabwe. Apparently this was decided at the recent Primates meeting in Alexandria. As I pointed out at the time, this couldn't possibly have had a lower profile, so I wonder how many will be joining this worthy event. Perhaps The Church Mouse can get the word out a bit.

GSK to cut the price of drugs for poor countries

Wow. This piece of news kind of snuck out on Friday. They have pledged that for the 50 poorest countries their drugs will cost no more than 25% the price in the UK & US. They've also pledged to reinvest a proportion of their profits from those countries into clinics, hostpitals and staff. They're also going to invite scientists from other companies NGOs or governments to join the hunt for tropical disease treatments at its dedicated institute at Tres Cantos, Spain.

Oxfam were cautiously hopeful. "He is breaking the mould in validating the concept of patent pools," said Rohit Malpani who runs Oxfam's access to medicines campaign. "That has been out there as an idea and no company has done anything about it. It is a big step forward. It is welcome that he is inviting other companies to take this on and have a race to the top instead of a race to the bottom."

Mouse thinks this is huge news, and lays down a challenge to other big pharma companies. What amazes the Mouse is the timing of this. GSK announced huge job losses only ten days ago.

The Valentine dilemma

I didn't notice the church saying anything interesting on Valentine's day this year. Its a tricky one. On the one hand they don't want to be seen promoting a pointless commercial venture invented purely for the purpose of selling greetings cards. On the other, they want to engage with modern culture.

The news from the the good old CofE that their research says people would prefer some quality time with the partner to an expensive gift sounded like a mix of a kill-joy story and common sense.

I can't help feeling we can do better than this. Since God is Love, it seems that we should have something better to say on Valentine's day.

Incidentally, did you know that the 14th is actually the festival of Cyril and Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 and 885? Saint Valentine is merely commemorated on the 14th.

Marriage rates at all time low

So the news wasn't a great surprise. What interests the Mouse is whether the church can find something to say about this that will really connect with anyone outside the church. The traditional view for some time is that Marriage is good because it is the God ordained way to bring up children and find true companionship for life. All very well, but it seems to have little traction outside the church. The commonest arguments are along the lines of, "why do I need a piece of paper and a big party to validate our love and our relationship?". And its a fair question.

The church really must pick up its game on this one. Marriage really is important. Family break-down is a factor in almost all other social problems from alcoholism, educational under-achievement to teenage pregnancy and crime.

Perhaps the church's approach should be a simple one of saying, "lifelong marriage works". Christians should also become masters of the statistics that prove the point - there are plenty out there. But we tend to rely on arguments that don't mean anything to non-Christians, like "its better to make the vows before God", or "God invented marriage when he joined Adam and Eve". I'm afraid this is another failure of cultural relevance.

Update: great post from Damian Thompson's blog in the Telegraph about the Catholic church's attempt (and dismal failure) to push National Marriage Week. Exactly in line with Mouse's point.

Bishop of London - 'relief' of getting the sack

Now I like Bishop Richard. Generally, I think he 'gets it'. He happy to innovate and modernise. But at the General Synod debate on the state of the economy Richard fell into classic Christian recession talk trap which Mouse blogged about last month. He is quoted as having said that many who have lost their jobs "seem to be relieved to get off the treadmill" and to consider the other things in life. The recession has given us a chance to "reboot our sense of what a truly flourishing human life consists of". He also said "It is difficult to know whether to sympathise more with those who have lost their jobs or those who are left carrying even greater loads with higher targets and fewer colleagues."

Firstly, he's right. Secondly, its a stupid thing to be saying right now. It is totally insensitive, and offers no pastoral support, to those who have lost their jobs and are now facing the threat of losing their homes. It fails to connect with the public mood, and it neglects the fact that unemployment and poverty are crushing, often leading to higher depression, family breakdown and even higher suicide rates.

Come on Richard, I know that's not what you means, but you have to think these things through.

Found a new blogging bishop

Well, he's been blogging for a while, but he's not listed on the CofE blogging bishop's site.

Check out Bishop Tim Ellis, Bishop of Grantham's blog, and say Hi from the Church Mouse.

Update: Bishop Tim has got himself on the Blogging Bishop's site, following Mouse's intervention: see the comments in this post http://fatherowl.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/are-we-human-or-are-we-dancer/

Synodical Tweet of the week

Special mention to fimckenzie for an exceptional volume of Tweeting from inside the General Synod.

And the Synodical Tweet of the week is:

Christ is unique - well who knew!

navm - on the debate, "the Uniqueness of Christ".

Blue Peter, junk food and the law of unintended consequences

A fascinating thesis from Jeremy Hunt on Conservative Home about the decline of Blue Peter. Viewing numbers have declined by 40% in the past year. This is not just bad news for the BBC, but it is also a potential tragedy for our national culture, should this decline continue. So why has this come about? Well here’s the theory.

Last year, the government banned advertising on junk food. It was widely predicted that the inevitable fall in advertising revenue that this would mean for commercial broadcasters would mean that they had less incentive to produce output in the children’s TV market. This turned out to be a fair prediction, and ITV has now ‘effectively withdrawn’ from day-time children’s TV. What was not foreseen was that this would distort competitive pressures on the BBC, who would inherit an effective monopoly.

The BBC duly shuffled the schedule to take advantage of this, whether consciously or not, and one of the losers was Blue Peter. Bumped from the 5.00pm after school slot to the 4.35pm slot, when kids with activities after school are still making their way home. One of the more disturbing features of this is that the replacement at 5.00pm is the Weakest Link. Hardly a children’s program and hardly a national treasure.

The lesson of all this is that unintended consequences are inevitable for any action of government. Action to stimulate lending by cutting interest rates will undoubtedly have huge repercussions in other areas of the economy, not just the obvious knock-ons of bad news for savers and a hit on the currency. The second order impacts will take some time to feed through the system, but will come for sure. The other feature of the law of unintended consequences is that it tends to operate in conjunction with Murphy’s Law. In other words, it usually leads to bad news – just ask Blue Peter.

The wonder of creation

Two stories this week caught the Mouse's eye. The first was the news that the Large Hadron Collider is about to be switched back on. Not only is Mouse scared that it will create a black hole that will destroy the universe, but it strikes him that man will stop at nothing to continue the search to explain who we are and where we came from.

Humanity has always, and will always, explore. And the inner workings of an atom is as interesting a place to explore as the other side of the planet or the other side of the moon.

The second story was the emerging tragedy of Nadya Suleman and her 14 children, eight of whom arrived in one go two weeks ago. By the accounts I've heard it seems that this woman has had a difficult life. A troubled childhood gave her a strong desire for a large family, but her failed marriage drove her to depression before she had children of her own. So she sought out a sperm donor and an IVF clinic to fulfil her heart's desire. Some have been critical of the poor woman as she is living with her parents on significant state support. Mouse thinks the anger should be directed at those who allowed this woman with mental health issues to have children in this way.

Many have criticised that Ms Suleman has no way to provide for the children. She has said, "I do believe wholeheartedly that God will provide in his own way." And I'm sure he will. But still. This is the product of a broken world and a broken heart. That God will have mercy and show is grace does not mean this is right.

These two stories are both examples of how the natural desires that God has put in our hearts can drive us to action. And that those actions can be both positive and negative. We must always be on our guard for how those desires drive our actions.

Synod boycott over - something interesting has happened

The most interesting part of the synod was the amount of blogging and tweeting that has been going on. Take a look at my Twitter friends if you'd like to see a few Synodical Tweeters and bloggers. Its all unofficial, obviously, but Mouse is increasingly thinking that unofficial grass roots engagement is a bigger force for engagement and change than a top down approach (see Conservative Home and Labour List , although is great suspicion about how genuinely independent Labour List is).

Still, the Synod has started to give me hope that there may be a hope of a real grass roots movement beyond the dismal factional organisations that currently plague the church.

Anglican webwatch (2)

Back again with a new Diocese website under the microscope. This time its Bristol's turn. I'll stick with the same rating scale as last time. Here goes.

1. Look and feel - Lovely. Clearly had been subject to some professional design (a big step up from Southwark). Calming colours, easy links, smart but relaxed, trendy but accessible to all. Top notch - 4 stars.
2. Ease of navigation - Text book. Easy menu along the side-bar, and a few quick links at the top. 4 stars.
3. Purpose and outlook - Purpose is clear - to equip churches for growth. I like the way the Diocese vision is clearly set out, and that plays through in the content available. Nothing for seekers, but since they clearly put the purpose out there as for churches in the diocese I'm OK with that. 4 stars.
4. Content - A bit light-weight in parts. There are lots of lovely videos, and some good stuff on the growth plans and strategy, but little content that churches could use in a really tangible way. There isn't much downloadable resources for churches, for example. 3 stars.

Overall its a great site. I'm sure over time the content will continue to improve to add in tools and templates for churches to download. All the building blocks are there for a great Diocese website. This one should set the benchmark for the rest with a creditable 15 stars.

Mouse

Mouse boycotts synod

At least until something interesting happens.

Ruth Gledhill blogs on day 1, and I'm sure she'll be keeping us posted. The highlight of her day was when a Bishop's mobile went off to the tune of 'Jingle Bells'. She comments, "Is this why ecumenical dialogue so rarely gets anywhere? Because it is so dull?" Quite.

Official stuff, including the agenda, from the CofE site. More interesting stuff on the blogosphere. This unofficial blog looks more interesting.

Mouse is watching but refuses to comment on this naval gazing talking shop until something interesting happens.

CofE Web Survey (3)

All credit for Navin @ the good old CofE for responding to the Mouse so quickly. Here's what he said:

Dear Mouse,

Many thanks for taking part in our survey and spreading the word of it through your blog. The points you have raised below are goods ones that we will take seriously as we look to move the Church of England website forward and make it more user centred. May I also ask if you could possibly link to Bishop Nick’s blog, as I have seen you do appreciate his views. Kind regards,

Navin

Mouse is happy to promote a good blog like Bishop Nick's, so its now on my blogroll. I'm not holding my breath on the website becoming more 'user centred' just yet, but at least the response was read!

Mouse

CofE Web Survey (2)

I don't mean to mock, but I couldn't resist fisking the CofE press release on this:


All levels of the Church of England see the importance of new media in reaching new audiences, with Bishop Nick Baines of Croydon being the latest Bishop to start blogging (nickbaines.wordpress.com/ ).

He's one of four Bishop Bloggers, two of which hardly ever post - not exactly a great record. its not a bad blog though.

• The Church’s Advent website www.whywearewaiting.com featured an interactive calendar and a vodcast by the Archbishop of Canterbury; it also included a quiz that was available on Facebook

Wow. And what do you mean "that was available on Facebook"?

• The new Bishop of St Albans was announced on YouTube (the first time this has been done)

Why? Smacks of a gimmick.

• The Archbishop of Canterbury has had a YouTube channel for more than a year, with almost 300 subscribers

300 - out of the 26m members, or 1.2m who attend CofE churches every week, or even out of the 20,000 or so ministers in the church that is an absolutely minute number.

• For the Church’s annual Lent campaign, Love Life Live Lent, a facebook application will be used

Why? Sounds like another gimmick.

• The Church’s podcasts were so successful they are now being recorded on a weekly basis with new and interesting people each week

As popular as Rowan's You Tube channel, or actually popular?

• The Church produces a monthly email communications update that is available free and currently has over 4000 recipients

Still not much of a circulation.

• The Church has created a new website especially for people getting married called www.yourchurchwedding.org which has now seen over 1000 couples use it to plan their weddings since its launch in October 2008

So that's around 66 people per week. Out of around 250,000 weddings per year, that's an another tiny number.

• The Church has begun engaging with young people who may be called to ordained ministry by creating a microsite, www.callwaiting.org.uk, which has proved very popular.

I think I'm getting used to this definition of popular.

The Church of England web-site has evolved over the years from small and semi-official beginnings, originally hosted by St Martin’s College, Lancaster as part of the Churchnet project.
• In 1998 it was brought in-house, re-designed and re-launched.
• It continued to grow in an ad hoc fashion, requiring another fundamental overhaul and re-launch in November 2004, with the opportunity taken to incorporate several new features.

So nothing much happened in the last four years? That says it all. The world has changed.

CofE 2.0? Don't count on it

The good old CofE proudly claims, "The Church of England is increasingly using a range of new media in order to enhance its web presence." Well, I beg to differ. A weekly podcast and four blogging bishops is hardly the church punching its weight.

So this Mouse felt a burst of joy when he saw the invitation from the good old CofE to give feedback on its website. My chance to show them how its done. My chance to explain the need for interactivity, genuine independence with a clear editorial vision, real cultural engagement.

But no. I was greeted with a very old media "user survey" asking me what I read a why. There wasn't even an 'any other comments' box at the bottom. Mouse couldn't resist emailing the CofE Comms Manager to let him know what I thought. Here's what I said:

Navin

I've just taken part in the survey, but couldn't resist adding some further observations to you directly. You can read my views in full on my blog, but here's what I would have liked to say in the survey if I'd had the chance:

1. The current website is dull, with no interactivity or the feeling that there is a human being in control of the site. As such it can only be used as an occasional reference source, like an online CofE encyclopaedia.
2. The best way to make it more engaging is to have some personality to it. It must also be dynamic, culturally relevant, interactive and have some kind of editorial vision.Genuine engagement with the grass roots of the church cannot be achieved solely through church controlled media.
3. I'd advise you take a look at Conservative Home for a glimpse of what can be achieved from the grass roots up. It is my view that something similar could be done for the CofE relatively easily if it had sufficient support.

The Church Mouse would be very happy to work with you to develop a 'CofE Home' style website if you could provide adequate support and the guarantee of independence. Please pass on my offer to Rowan Williams when you see him next.

Regards

The Church Mouse
http://churchmousepublishing.blogspot.com

I'll keep you posted if I get a reply. One odd thing is that the survey seems to be hosted by the University of Bristol (judging by the URL). Can the church not do a survey on its own!?

Bonus time at RBS

What's really interesting about this for the Mouse is how it makes you feel to hear that RBS bankers might get a decent bonus this year after the forced nationalisation of the bank.

Not everyone at the bank was involved in the trading of toxic assets, so why shouldn't they get a bonus if they've worked hard and performed well? Bankers remuneration is part base-pay and part bonus, so even in a bad year they are contractually entitled to a bonus. But these things just don't matter. At least they don't feel like they matter.

The human side of this story is that the word 'bonus' and 'bankers' triggers something in the brain and in the gut. My advice to the boys at RBS is to withhold bonuses. I know the staff won't like it, but at least they'll keep their jobs. You could put the cash into the bonus pool for 2009 if you really wanted, to provide a further incentive to turn the organisation round. But please have a heart. Everyone else is struggling, so don't give us the impression that your bank's failure meant nothing to you.

SSPX row for dummies

OK, not just for dummies but for anyone who is slightly confused by the whole thing. First off, the glossary of terms:

SSPX = Society of Saint Pius the Tenth. Here's a link to their UK office. Essentially they are a Catholic off-shoot, who don't believe in anything remotely modern. Amusingly, their website describes them as "without any trace of modernist doctrine, morals or worship". I presume they mean modern morals and modern worship. Essentially this means they oppose Vatican II.

Vatican II = the second vatican council. A three year process within the Catholic church in the 1960s that reformed some stuff. Like most Catholic doctrine, if you don't believe it you're not considered a Catholic by the Pope.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre = Chap who founded SSPX, and a highly controvertial character in the Catholic church, and didn't buy into Vatican II. Died in 1991.

Bishop Richard Williamson = Excommunicated in 1988 when he was consecrated Bishop by Archbishop Lefebrvre, as this was not authorised by the Pope. Denied the holocaust in November 2008.

Excommunication = getting chucked out of the church.

So, the story is essentially a very uninteresting one, whereby a hardline Catholic group have been allowed back into communion with the Catholic church by the Pope, even though they still have a few doctrinal differences. All very dull. But what gives it a bit more interest is that one of the SSPX Bishops denied that the holocaust took place or that the gas chambers existed. The very latest on the story is that the Bishop concerned (Bishop Williamson) seems to have lost his job within SSPX, but not his position. There are also rumours that he's dying of cancer.

Mouse thinks that this has already taken up far more column inches in the Christian blogosphere and old media than it deserves, so I won't be mentioning it again (unless something really interesting happens). If you're interested Damian Thompson seems to keep an up-to-the-minute commentary on the topic in his blog.

I'm afraid for me its just another demonstration of what's wrong with public debate on religion in this country - the media is only interested in gossip, splits, and debates on sexuality and women bishops.

Mouse spotted by Iain Dale

Here's a shout out to top Tory blogfather Iain Dale for spotting The Church Mouse, and linking to it in his 'Iain Dale's Diary' blog. This blog was featured in his Ten New Blogs column. Thanks Iain. Mouse was particularly honoured, as his mission was inspired by Iain (amongst others).

Interestingly he describes this blog as a 'Right or centre religious perspective.' Mouse has never consciously revealed his political leanings, so I took the political compass test and here is the result. I was a little surprised to find myself left of centre (last time I took the test I was just the other side of the line and was fractionally right of centre), but I think the point is made that I'm really a centrist. Which is to say I find myself agreeing with Cameron more than Brown.

Intolerant of the intolerant!?

At the risk of becoming more tongue tied than Donald Rumsfled, but these days the level of outrage emitted by those claiming to be standing up for tolerance is surely demonstrating even more intolerance of their own. The latest Clarkson affair is a great case in point. His insult of Gordon Brown as a "one-eyed Scottish idiot", and later calling him a liar is clearly offensive to Brown, mainly because of the "idiot" and "liar" bits. But Scottish politicians (Labour ones almost exclusively) and some blind charities have come out with extraordinary levels of outrage at the offensive comments. This takes one mans anger and offensive comments, and multiplies them with the outrage of others.

Is the criticism of Clarkson increased because works for the BBC, and it fits on the news agenda of the day? Or is it that Clarkson is known to be a Tory, and Labour supports are keen to use this to demonstrate that Tories are "nasty"? Who knows. Mouse has argued before that the best way to handle offensive criticism is simply to be the bigger man (or woman).

Christ was willing to take on the sin of the world and all the insult, hatred and pain that the world could throw on him. We should be big enough to be called an idiot or one-eyed or Scottish or anything else. That's not to condone insulting others. But lets not respond by pouring out hatred in even greater measure.

Recession talk (2)

Question: Are greedy bankers to blame for all this economic trouble?

Mouse has heard many of the congregation in his church talking about how angry they are about greedy bankers causing all this trouble. Even Gordon Brown has said it. This mouse isn't so sure.

On one level, it will take economists and historians a long time to figure out whether the recession really is the fault of banks taking on too much risk. The likelihood is that this is a big factor, along with many others. For example, global trade imbalances between the west and developing nations have almost certainly played a major part. But, of course, the question in the pews and aisles of this nation is not really about that at all.

We want to blame someone. Greedy bankers seems like an easy target. This mouse feels very uncomfortable about this. Firstly, the bankers were only one side of the transaction. For every dodgy mortgage they underwrote, securitised and sold on, there are probably at least six interested parties:

1) the house buyer who thought it was a good idea to take out a mortgage that they couldn't really afford
2) the house seller who wanted to cash in on an over inflated market
3) the estate agent who valued the property at sky high levels and stoked the market through numerous tactics designed to make the buyer feel like they had to offer above asking price, and do it quickly
4) the bank who thought it was a good deal
5) the mortgage broker / IFA / bank manager who advised the customer on which mortgage to take, and failed to point out that they probably couldn't afford it
6) the government who allowed the largely unregulated house buying market to continue as stamp duty revenues increased year-on-year, making everyone feel like property was making them rich

On top of that, the bankers who sold on the dodgy securitised debt were doing so with the blessing of regulators, such as the UK Financial Services Authority, and credit ratings agencies who all gave the banks a clean bill of health.

It is almost certainly true that bankers are greedy. But only because almost everyone is greedy. I've never met a banker who truly loved their dull number crunching job. The reality is that almost all bankers do it for the money and the lifestyle. But then how many other people don't like their jobs, but are just there for the money?

Mouse thinks that the Christian response to this question should be to avoid judging others, particularly when the situation is so complex that the best brains on the planet don't know what happened. We should accept our part in the problem - after all, anyone who bought or sold a house in the past ten years has been a part of this failed system. We should then forgive and look forward to how we can rebuild our economy along more Christian lines.

Mouse